


Timeless

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Modern AU, very mild mention of parental death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 17:18:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16937463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: The power goes out while Katherine is struggling to meet a deadline, so she has to use an unconventional method to get her writing done.





	Timeless

**Author's Note:**

> I say this is "modern" AU, but nobody has smart phones for plot reasons, so let's say it's late 90's AU.

“Well, I called our landlord,” Jack said, clutching his cell phone anxiously at his side.

“And?” Katherine tried very hard not to let her own strain show. Whatever had happened, it was not Jack’s fault, and he didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of her worries.

The room was dark, lit only by the screen of Katherine’s battered old laptop. Jack could just see the dim outline of her face, biting her lip as if she was begging him to give her any other news than what she knew was coming.

“He says he can come fix our power tomorrow afternoon. We must’ve blown a fuse somewhere, but I can’t figure out how to fix it to save my life.”

“Or mine.” Katherine rested her forehead in her hands with a dramatic sigh. “I’ve got less than ten minutes of battery life left, and a deadline at eight AM tomorrow. This could be my big break. I have to finish this article.”

Jack put his hands on Katherine’s shoulders from behind, giving them a tight squeeze. He hated seeing her like this. She’d been stressed out enough before the power blew.

Luckily, he didn’t have to see her like that for long. Katherine was one to worry, but she had never been one to fall into despair. She stood up decisively, like one of a mission.

Her first stop was to try the circuit breaker. Jack had already spent an hour or so tinkering with that, but it never hurt to try. Unfortunately she didn’t have any more luck than he had.

“I’d kill for a flashlight right now,” Katherine said. “Why didn’t we buy anything practical when we first moved in here?”

“ ‘Cause we were stupid newly weds….?”

Katherine shook her head. “No flashlight, no first aid kit, no sewing kit… Jack, do we even have scissors?”

“We have those really nice plates your pal Darcy gave us. The ones with the doves. And that toaster from Davey. That’s useful.”

“We have a toaster and no fire extinguisher,” Katherine said, horrified. “If there was a fire we would… Candles! Jack, we have candles! That’s perfect.”

The candles were in a drawer in the living room. They were a scent called “home sweet home”, which both Katherine and Jack agreed smelled like a mixture of cinnamon and unwashed feet, not that they would ever tell Romeo, who had given them the candles as a wedding gift.

Katherine lit one of them now, and resisted the urge to hold her breath. She’d be breathing in that scent all night, so she’d just have to get used to it.

Her next step was to go up to the attic, and dig through some boxes there. Her father had passed away the year before, and though she had been the only member of her family not to inherit any of his material wealth, her mother had given her a small box of old heirlooms, in hopes that they would help her remember some of the better times between them.

In the box was a dusty antique typewriter. As a little girl she’d spent hours pounding away at that thing, while other children played computer games. She’d type and type, and pretend she was one of the great forefathers of literature, a Dickens or a Thackeray. At other times she would sit at her desk, dipping her pencil in a glass of water to resemble ink, and imagine she was Shakespeare, penning tragedies and romances with an elegant quill pen.

Well, with any luck her old childhood playmate would serve her well now. She picked up the clunky old typewriter under one arm, and balanced her candle carefully in the other, as she made her way back downstairs.

At her desk her laptop was threatening to shut down if she didn’t plug it into a power source. Fat chance of that happening. Katherine saved her work, and started to set up her typewriter.

“That’s quite the machine,” Jack said. Katherine beamed back at him.

“Just wait till you see her in action.”

———

Katherine banged away for hours on her little typewriter, replacing pages as she filled them. It turned out that they did have a pair of scissors in the house, which was lucky, because the A4 computer paper they had on hand was too big for the typewriter, and needed to be cut down. Jack sat at Katherine’s side for a while, cutting up paper so she’d have a ready supply and could just concentrate on her writing.

By the time the clock on the wall struck two, Katherine was still writing away, too far in her own world to even savor the soft click of the typewriter keys as she had for the first hour or so of her work. Jack was dozing on the couch.

At sometime around three AM Jack roused himself enough to realize two things; first of all, it was really cold without their heater to stave off the elements. Second of all, Katherine was still hard at work.

He got up to grab a blanket, and found himself staring at her from the doorway. Typing away in the candle light, with her rich brown hair cascading down her shoulders, and a thoughtful expression on her face, she looked like something from another time. Jack could imagine some past incarnation of Katherine Plumber sitting at a little desk, in a little house, looking just the way she did now. The weirdest thing of all was the odd sense of déjà vu he felt, like all of this was something he’d seen before.

He shook his head to clear it, spread the blanket over Katherine’s shoulders, and kissed her cheek. She gave him a smile, and then got back to her work. Jack took out his sketch book, sat down on the couch where he could get a good look at her, and began his.


End file.
